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EMI Using Rapidshare To Market Music
An anonymous reader writes "While Rapidshare defends itself around the world from lawsuits by media companies for copyright infringement, new evidence was revealed that UK-based major label EMI is putting music on Rapidshare and directing people to download it in the hopes that it spreads 'virally.' This came to light in the ongoing copyright battle EMI v. MP3tunes over personal cloud media storage and the Sideload.com music search engine. EMI accuses MP3tunes of enabling piracy by linking to Rapidshare, but since EMI is using Rapidshare, this would seem to weaken their argument considerably. You can read the legal brief online."
To the best of my (layman's) knowledge, the area of what implies an "implied consent" or "implied contract" is often rather murky, and based on a mixture of precedent and judicial gut feeling, along with some patchy laws.
I would be pretty certain that EMI posting Song X to which they own the copyright to Rapidshare does not entitle me to (legally) redistribute it; but it seems like there might be a very good argument that it does entitle me to, legally, download it. If there is a location(a Freecycle depot or something) that operates under a large banner saying "Free stuff, take what you want, save it from the dump!" and I place a computer that I own in that location, I have to imagine that a reasonable man, in the legal sense, would conclude that I am thereby forfeiting ownership of that object(unless I can specifically prove that I was just carrying it, set it down for a moment to catch my breath, and somebody snatched it from beside my feet, or something similar).
Rapidshare, as its name would suggest, is basically an electronic analog of such a physical place. You put stuff there to distribute it(though, if memory serves, they might have some private distribution option for members). If a rightsholder knowingly and intentionally places material to which they own the rights in a place that explicitly operates as a medium for free dissemination, one would imagine that this amounts to an implied consent to, at least, free dissemination from that location. It doesn't clearly mean surrender of copyright, so it might not save those who re-disseminate it by other means; but it would seem to imply a licence to disseminate has been granted to rapidshare...
Obviously, IANAL; but I know that there are limits to what you can do without creating implicit, and binding, rights to for others. You can't mail somebody something without their consent and then invoice them for it, if you try, the thing that you mailed is a gift. If you put something on the curb, with a "free-take me" sign, you can't reasonably expect to charge the person who does with larceny...